Seeking Food - By Ketojinic

What makes a chicken, a chicken champion? Pollo Campeon (Translated to "Chicken Champion") has been around for more than 30 years and counting. The company started really small in a tiny location with barely enough tables to call it a restaurant. The owners are Korean immigrants who came to Bolivia to try to create a viable business. Since that time, they have expanded to 7 locations in Santa Cruz and counting. Some say the reason for their success is because of their dirt cheap prices (adjusted for inflation). Others say it's because they give you a consistent product, they have a drive-thru, they give you a little of everything, they give you a bucket of rice with your 1/4 chicken order. But, let's be real. The majority of people go back here over other rotisserie joints around town because of their incredibly addicting green sauce. It's interesting to have seen their empire rise from a small restaurant to a chain beloved by the local community. A business c...

"Cuñape" is the best cheeseballs in the world, and it’s from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. These gooey and addictive cheese balls are similar to the Brazilian "pão de queijo" or the French "gougères" or the Colombian "pandebono" but all of these are different from each other as well. Gougères are lighter and more airy while the Brazilian ones are chewier but drier on the outside. I would say the pandebonos are closest in taste and texture to the Bolivian cuñape but it is slight more bready. In Bolivia, we use mennonite cheese (farmer's cheese) for this recipe and honestly without that cheese it will never be exactly like the original but you do what you can. I've been hunting down a similar cheese in the U.S. for ages but the closest I can get to it is to use the queso blanco or fresco and add some more salt (or even mix some feta into it). The history of the cuñape is very interesting. It is a Guaraní word that means "a woman's b...

I finally made it down to La Rancherita. This is hands down the best  salteñas  in California. When I'm craving Bolivian food, I usually only crave  salteña . This place is super legit and they sell other stuff too,  like Bolivian cheese in their fridge as well as other non-Bolivian pastries and other types of food but honestly I wasn't even paying attention to that because I legit got a dozen  salteñas here to take to a potluck after I ate one and was like.. this is the BEST  salteña!!! La Rancherita Bakery 2709 Westminster Ave Ste B Santa Ana, CA 92706

I get really excited when I can think of a food or drink that is solely Bolivian. I admit there isn't too many Bolivian dishes that are not influenced by the many countries that it borders. Even the Saltena, Bolivia's most famous empanada looking pastry comes from a woman who came from Salta, Argentina, to Tarija, Bolivia.  So when I'm researching Mocochinchi, my favorite childhood and now adulthood drink, made from dehydrated whole peaches, sugar, and cinnamon, and I find that it's a "Bolivian"drink , I get really really excited. Bolivia Bella  goes on to describe regional favorites.  In Santa Cruz, you can buy the dehydrated peaches in the open markets. I snag a pound of dehydrated peaches because you really can't find these in the U.S. except maybe in Miami or Virginia, where there is a huge population of Bolivians. Using sliced dehydrated peaches don't really work for this particular drink because the fun is eating the reconstituted pe...

Where do you eat when you are in La Paz? How about La Tranquera? It's a steakhouse with a huge salad bar. Technically speaking, you can just have the salad bar but the price difference is pretty drastic so if you eat meat, it's a better value to get the sizzling steak with chorizo (or just the steak) since it comes with the salad bar. Then, you can stuff yourself with protein and carbs! Highlights: Fried Yucca, The pasta dishes, the key lime pie dessert, and the veggies. It's not so easy to find good veggie dishes in the carb and protein laden Bolivian diet so eat up when you can. If you're not stuffed already, please do yourself a favor and order the Arroz con Queso. It is a Bolivian version of risotto, but more gooey and less rice-y. Very cheesy and pungent but amazing with the llajua and the steak juice. Yum, I'm dying here just thinking about this. I also ordered the Silpancho, which is a traditional Bolivian dish with rice, a thin layer of schnitzel...

In Santa Cruz, Bolivia, you grow up knowing about certain places and they become mainstays. There is less competition since the population is so small and little communities form to help each other out and their businesses. For example, the Korean community in Santa Cruz is so tight-knit that it's easy to identify them based on which church they go to and if they don't go to church, which church they are affiliated with (where most of their friends and family attend). This idea stretches to other types of communities of people who live in Santa Cruz. On our last day in Bolivia, we went to our church to say goodbye to our community and an unexpected trip to eat duck was devised by a few family friends. " ¿ Quieres comer pato?" - "Do you want to eat duck?" exclaimed Mrs. Yoon.  We were about to head out to Cotoca, a neighboring city so we turned her down. Have you ever tried turning down an adamant Korean lady? Needless to say, five minutes later we...

It took me nearly ten years to see Bolivia again. In my mind, I built up Bolivia to be this magical place where not only my childhood took place, but a place untouched by the evilness of industrialization, mass production, and globalization. (Lomas de Arena: Sand Dunes, Santa Cruz, Bolivia) Of course, a lot of things have changed. (La Paz, Bolivia) When I lived in Bolivia, I barely left my city, Santa Cruz. The cuisine of the altiplano (or the high altitude regions) is pretty different from the cuisine of the lowlands. La Paz, the capital, is dry, cold in the shade, hot in the sun, and you're basically living amongst the clouds. People here eat a lot more quinoa than they do in Santa Cruz. Most of the quinoa comes from the altiplano because quinoa is hardy and it can grow in high altitudes. The andes are the perfect place for quinoa to grow. During our trip to La Paz and the Salar de Uyuni, we had a lot of quinoa soup and cooked quinoa instead of rice. ...

We arrive in Santa Cruz, Bolivia in the dead of winter. I know much has changed since the last time I was there in 2002, so I ask my best friend from high school, Ana Carola, to meet us at Cafe Victory, an old hangout spot we used to frequent in high school. We get to Cafe Victory around noon, and except for a few old men, the cafe is deserted.  We order a cup of coffee and hot chocolate to stave off the freezing cold. Whoever thinks South America is a tropical paradise has never come here during the winter (summer for the U.S. is winter in South America, and vice versa). Ana Carola meets us and takes us down the block to her favorite hangout spot, Lorca. She's good friends with the manager, Ubaldo Nallar, who is also an actor, producer, theater director, dramaturge, and cultural manager. Felipe Ibarreche, who is also the Bachelor of Tourism and Cultural Heritage Conservation expert, is the mixologist and part of Lorca's administrat...